30 years ago, your computer case had these interfaces: PS/2 for keyboard and mouse, ladder DB-25 for printer, optical modem, VGA video port.

20 years ago, your computer, mobile device and electrical appliances had these interfaces: USB Type-A, USB micro-A, micro-B and mini, and HDMI or DP.

Now, in theory, you only need one cable to connect all devices to a Type-C port.

Why can Type-C unify all interfaces? How powerful is Type-C? Is it just because it can be plugged in both directions?

Before we discuss Type-C, we need to look at an interface that we just ignored, and even greater to some extent, the USB Type-A port. This interface that can only be plugged in three times may seem commonplace today, but it was so advanced at the time.

It is the first interface form spawned by USB technology, and it even revolutionized human cognition of interfaces.

In the pre-USB era, wiring methods may include twisting, rotating, and screwing, and the advent of USB technology provides a unified standard.

When the Type-A interface appeared, this extremely convenient hot-swap method made people realize for the first time that the interface should be like this.

When the time came to 2014, USB Type-C appeared. Type-C is an interface form born under the USB 3.1 protocol.

Now our mobile phones, computers, tablets, cameras, keyboards and mice, headphones and even electric toothbrushes have all started to use Type-C. Even the Lightning port, which has been stubborn for ten years, may be replaced by Type-C this year due to the EU bill. The USB interfaces in the past 20 years will be unified by Type-C again.

You must know that promoting a new protocol and the new interface itself face considerable resistance, because in the eyes of many brands, the previous PCB public board saves money and labor, why not continue to use it, and changing the interface will also affect the ecology of many devices and accessories. Even USB type-A took two years to be accepted by the market. So what makes Type-C win more and more manufacturers today and will eventually unify the world? Is it just because it is easy to plug in?

Of course not. The biggest advantage of Type-C lies in its functional integration. Just like an A port integrated the access functions of multiple computer peripherals, now Type-C can even integrate the functions of DP and HDMI video cables. This is of course due to the universality of the protocol. After the DisplayPort video interface protocol was updated to version 1.3, VESA began to work with USB to support the Type-C interface to implement the DP function.

But if you look deeper, you will find that the Type-C interface can achieve so many skill points. The root of all this is actually because of speed. How fast is it?

Since the third generation protocol, USB has called itself Sper Speed, and the transmission speed has increased from 480Mbps to 5Gbps. Type-C has caught up with USB 3.1, which is 10Gbps of USB 3.2 Gen2.

With the iteration of the protocol, the upper limit of Type-C's transmission speed has been continuously raised to 20Gbps, 40Gbps, and even 80Gbps.

Let's say that the USB organization just likes to give old interfaces a new name, but the data transmission speed is faster, and the interface can do more.

Take video transmission as an example. The display presents an image itself, which is a kind of data flow.

The higher the resolution of a monitor, the more pixel data needs to be transmitted, and the higher the refresh rate of the monitor, the more frames need to be output per second. If you are watching this video on a 1080P 60Hz monitor, the amount of data that needs to be transmitted per second is 0.4GB. If you are using a 4K 120Hz monitor, then this number will increase to 1.56GB.

So how can Type-C achieve this level of speed? Because the hardware configuration keeps up.

The key to fast speed lies in the pins of the interface.

Compare the eight-pin Lightning interface, which has two pins for data transmission, while a complete Type-C interface has 24 pins, and the number of pins for ultra-high-speed data transmission has increased to four pairs, that is, eight. When used only for ordinary data transmission, usually only half of these pins are used, but when the Type-C interface that supports the DP protocol enables the video transmission function, it will borrow two pairs of these pins, or even all four pairs, to transmit data. The transmission part can be played, and this is equivalent to stacking another layer of buff.

If the version configuration is fully pulled, the image transmission rate combined with Type-C can even reach a terrifying 77.4Gbps, which can theoretically support a monitor with more than 10k to output images.

To put it bluntly, the upgrade of interface speed and function is like turning two dirt roads into a brand new eight-lane two-way expressway.

You may say that more pins are more awesome.

But this is not a simple addition. We can see that it took more than ten years to upgrade Type-A from four pins to nine pins, because more pins mean that the components, circuits and modules responsible for controlling data signals inside the interface will become more complicated. Just like the real difficulty of road construction is actually making roadbeds, installing fences, opening intersections, and setting traffic lights, so this also means that not all Type-C can be fully buffed, because the full-featured 24-frame Type-C interface is a rare equipment.

Whether to use the C port, whether to use the C port interface that can DP, and which version of the protocol to use, these largely depend on the hardware decision of the product manufacturer.

At this moment, you will find that the power of Type-C may be understood in another way. It can change the scene of our use of devices. In the past, we can use the tablet that we used to hold in our hands as a mobile display. Or an extended screen for a game console, and concentration, flexibility and freedom have become the destination of all port technologies and connection methods in the past and in the future.